When Clark reached the mouth of the canyon, he frowned. Out on a green meadow a farmer drove a tractor, busily plowing deep furrows for a new crop. A trim ranch house in the distance gleamed in the morning sunlight. Funny. Earlier, when he had crossed the field, he hadn't noticed a sign of civilization. But it had been nearly dark then.
He strolled casually down to a rude stone wall and watched the tractor churn toward him. The farmer waved. He jolted to a halt, cut the engine and wiped a red bandana over his wrinkled, sweating face. Clark glanced down at his own shabby clothes and rubbed a rough, bristly chin. If he looked like a bum, his brief demonstration would seem all the more amazing.
"Pretty hot work, eh?" Clark greeted him.
"Yep," the old farmer nodded as he drank from a canteen. Clark grinned. History would record this man as the first person to actually witness a degravitator at work. Clark studied the unplowed side of the meadow, then pointed at a large, half-buried boulder.
"You have a little work there, mister. I think a Clark Farm Helper will do the trick."
The farmer gave him a puzzled look. Clark calmly beamed the rock. At first it strained up and down, but finally wrenched free. He floated it up in a slow arc, then deliberately dropped it with a heavy thud. Clark chuckled as the farmer tried to hide his astonishment with a poker face.
"That for sale?" he asked shrewdly.
Clark laughed heartily. "Not this one. I'll make a fortune manufacturing these little babies!"
"How do you figure that?"